UNS – A heavy rainfall in Jakarta early (1/1/2020) has caused a massive flood that swamped wide areas and caused casualties and material costs. Slow handling of flood and lack of preventive measures performed by the Provincial Government of Jakarta has caused thousands of Jakarta populations to evacuate with a looming threat of high precipitation which the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Board (BMKG) predicted will occur until the peak of the rainy season in February.
Learning from the great flooding that struck the capital city, the head of the Centre for Environmental Research (Pusat Penelitian Lingkungan Hidup – PPLH) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, Dr. Suryanto, reminded the public about the threat of disaster which can strike anytime, including in Soloraya area.
“It is not the time to point a finger and blame one another. The great flooding that struck the Jabodetabek area should become a lesson for us to increase our guard because Soloraya is not free from the risk of disasters,” Dr. Suryanto stated.
Suryanto told uns.ac.id that high-intensity precipitation that occurs in Soloraya has a potency to trigger natural disasters.
“Heavy rainfall has a potency to increase the risk of landslides in Tawangmangu, Karanganyar; and floods in several points in Soloraya. The effects of landslides or flooding risk and other types of disasters are not as simple as it appears,” he added.
Based on the data of the disasters that struck in previous years, Suryanto explained two types of disaster impacts, direct and indirect impact. He explained that the direct impacts of disasters include those with market value and those without market value. The impacts that have a market value, he mentioned, are damaged farming fields, houses, vehicles, and public facilities, while the impacts that do not have market value are the losses in which the economic values are hard to assess, for example, damaged historic buildings.
The post-disaster risk that appears must be identified based on the areas with the highest risk of the threat, he continued. This is intended to enable the government to design preventive measures in saving its citizens from the threats of disaster.
“Based on the impact of threatening disaster risk, it is suggested that we must identify the areas around us with a high risk of disaster. The government also needs to allocated budget to prepare citizens with disaster risk mitigations.”
Besides asking for government preparedness, Suryanto also expects the public to be aware and anticipate the occurrence of a disaster, for example by preparing emergency bags equipped with food, flashlights, warm clothes, blankets, and medicines. Humas UNS